ID Foundations, 21: MF — “as a materialist I believe intelligence to be a blend of the determined and random so for me that is not a third type of explanation” . . . a root worldview assumption based cause for rejecting the design inference emerges into plain view
In the OK thread, in comment 50, ID objector Mark Frank has finally laid out the root of ever so many of the objections to the design inference filter. Unsurprisingly, it is a worldview based controlling a priori of materialism:
[re EA] #38
[MF, in 50:] I see “chance” as usually meaning to “unpredictable” or “no known explanation”. The unknown explanations may be deterministic elements or genuinely random uncaused events which we just don’t know about.
It can also includes things that happen as the result of intelligence – but as a materialist I believe intelligence to be a blend of the determined and random so for me that is not a third type of explanation.
But, just what what is the explanatory filter that is being objected to so strenuously?
Let me present it first, in the per aspect flowchart form that I have often used here at UD, that shows it to be a more specific and detailed understanding of a lot of empirically grounded scientific methods of investigation.
Galileo’s leaning tower exercise, showing mechanical necessity: F = m*g, of course less air resistance. NB: He did a thought expt of imagining the light and heavy ball tied together, so on the “heavier must fall faster” concept, the objects now should fall even faster. But, shouldn’t the lighter one instead have retarded the heavier? As in, oopsie. The expt may have been done and the heavier may have hit just ahead, as air resistance is as cross section but weight is as volume. (HT: Lannyland & Wiki.)
One that explicitly invokes mechanical necessity as first default, then on high contingency rejects it — if a lawlike necessity is at work, it will produce reliably similar outcomes on similar initial circumstances, just as a dropped heavy object near earth’s surface has initial acceleration 9.8 N/kg due to the gravity field of the earth.
However, this does not cover all phenomena, e.g. if the dropped object is a fair common die that then falls to a table, it will tumble and settle to read a value from the set {1, 2, . . . 6} in a way that is close to the mathematical behaviour of an ideal flat random variable.
But also, chance and necessity cannot cover all outcomes. Not only do we routinely experience being intelligent designers — e.g. by my composing this post — but we often see a class of phenomena which is highly contingent but not plausibly accounted for on chance. For, if we see 500 – 1,000 bits or more of functionally specific complex organisation and/or information [FSCO/I], the needle in haystack challenge faced by the atomic resources of our solar system or cosmos will be overwhelmed by the space of possible configurations and the challenge of finding cases E from narrow and isolated target or hot zones T in such spaces, W.
Citing Dembski’s definition of CSI in No Free Lunch:
p. 148: “The great myth of contemporary evolutionary biology is that the information needed to explain complex biological structures can be purchased without intelligence. My aim throughout this book is to dispel that myth . . . . Eigen and his colleagues must have something else in mind besides information simpliciter when they describe the origin of information as the central problem of biology.
I submit that what they have in mind is specified complexity [[cf. here below], or what equivalently we have been calling in this Chapter Complex Specified information or CSI . . . .
Biological specification always refers to function . . . In virtue of their function [[a living organism’s subsystems] embody patterns that are objectively given and can be identified independently of the systems that embody them. Hence these systems are specified in the sense required by the complexity-specificity criterion . . . the specification can be cashed out in any number of ways [[through observing the requisites of functional organisation within the cell, or in organs and tissues or at the level of the organism as a whole] . . .”
p. 144: [[Specified complexity can be defined:] “. . . since a universal probability bound of 1 [[chance] in 10^150 corresponds to a universal complexity bound of 500 bits of information, [[the cluster] (T, E) constitutes CSI because T [[ effectively the target hot zone in the field of possibilities] subsumes E [[ effectively the observed event from that field], T is detachable from E, and and T measures at least 500 bits of information . . . ”
So, design thinkers reject the default explanation for high contingency– chance — if we see FSCO/I or the like. That is, we infer on FSCO/I and related patterns best explained on (and as known reliable signs of) design, to just that, intelligent design:
Accordingly, I replied to MF at 59 in the OK thread, as follows:
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>>> the pivot of the issue is now plain from MF at 50 above:
[re EA] #38
[MF:] I see “chance” as usually meaning to “unpredictable” or “no known explanation”. The unknown explanations may be deterministic elements or genuinely random uncaused events which we just don’t know about.
It can also includes things that happen as the result of intelligence – but as a materialist I believe intelligence to be a blend of the determined and random so for me that is not a third type of explanation.
Here we have the root problem, that for MF, design reduces to chance and necessity.
Also, I would not go along fully with MF’s definition of chance {“uncaused events” is a very troublesome concept for instance but my focus here is,} having identified that chance processes come about by two major known physical processes:
Chance:
Tumbling dice — a chaotic phenomenon thanks to eight corners and twelve edges interacting with uncontrollable surface roughness etc. (HT:Rosendahl, Flicker)
TYPE I:the clash of uncorrelated trains of events such as is seen when a dropped fair die hits a table etc and tumbles, settling to readings in the set {1, 2, . . . 6} in a pattern that is effectively flat random. In this sort of event, we often see manifestations of sensitive dependence on initial conditions, aka chaos, intersecting with uncontrolled or uncontrollable small variations yielding a result predictable in most cases only up to a statistical distribution which needs not be flat random.
TYPE II:processes — especially quantum ones — that are evidently random, such as quantum tunnelling as is the explanation for phenomena of alpha decay. This is used in for instance zener noise sources that drive special counter circuits to give a random number source. Such are sometimes used in lotteries or the like, or presumably in making one time message pads used in decoding.
In reply to MF’s attempt to reduce design by intelligence to the other two sources of cause, I suggest that this approach radically undermines the credibility of mind as a thinking and knowing function of being intelligent humans, in a reductio ad absurdum. (Cf my remarks here yesterday in reply to Dan Barker’s FFRF and my longstanding observations — in the end they go back to the mid 1980′s in answer to Marxist materialism as well as evolutionary materialism — here on.)
Haldane sums up one of the major problems aptly, in a turn of the 1930′s remark that has often been cited here at UD:
“It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. In order to escape from this necessity of sawing away the branch on which I am sitting, so to speak, I am compelled to believe that mind is not wholly conditioned by matter.” [[“When I am dead,” in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209.]
Let me clip my more extended discussion:
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>> 15 –> In short, it is at least arguable that self-referential absurdity is the dagger pointing to the heart of evolutionary materialistic models of mind and its origin . . . . [It can be presented at a much more sophisticated way, cf. Hasker p. 64 on here as an example, also Reppert, Plantinga and others] but without losing its general force, it can also be drawn out a bit in a fairly simple way:
a: Evolutionary materialism argues that the cosmos is the product of chance interactions of matter and energy, within the constraint of the laws of nature; from hydrogen to humans by undirected chance and necessity.
b: Therefore, all phenomena in the universe, without residue, are determined by the working of purposeless laws of chance and/or mechanical necessity acting on material objects, under the direct or indirect control of happenstance initial circumstances.
(This is physicalism. This view covers both the forms where (a) the mind and the brain are seen as one and the same thing, and those where (b) somehow mind emerges from and/or “supervenes” on brain, perhaps as a result of sophisticated and complex software looping. The key point, though is as already noted: physical causal closure — the phenomena that play out across time, without residue, are in principle deducible or at least explainable up to various random statistical distributions and/or mechanical laws, from prior physical states. Such physical causal closure, clearly, implicitly discounts or even dismisses the causal effect of concept formation and reasoning then responsibly deciding, in favour of specifically physical interactions in the brain-body control loop; indeed, some mock the idea of — in their view — an “obviously” imaginary “ghost” in the meat-machine. [[There is also some evidence from simulation exercises, that accuracy of even sensory perceptions may lose out to utilitarian but inaccurate ones in an evolutionary competition. “It works” does not warrant the inference to “it is true.”] )
c: But human thought, clearly a phenomenon in the universe, must now fit into this meat-machine picture. So, we rapidly arrive at Crick’s claim in his The Astonishing Hypothesis (1994): what we subjectively experience as “thoughts,” “reasoning” and “conclusions” can only be understood materialistically as the unintended by-products of the blind natural forces which cause and control the electro-chemical events going on in neural networks in our brains that (as the Smith Model illustrates) serve as cybernetic controllers for our bodies.
d: These underlying driving forces are viewed as being ultimately physical, but are taken to be partly mediated through a complex pattern of genetic inheritance shaped by forces of selection [[“nature”] and psycho-social conditioning [[“nurture”], within the framework of human culture [[i.e. socio-cultural conditioning and resulting/associated relativism]. And, remember, the focal issue to such minds — notice, this is a conceptual analysis made and believed by the materialists! — is the physical causal chains in a control loop, not the internalised “mouth-noises” that may somehow sit on them and come along for the ride.
(Save, insofar as such “mouth noises” somehow associate with or become embedded as physically instantiated signals or maybe codes in such a loop. [[How signals, languages and codes originate and function in systems in our observation of such origin — i.e by design — tends to be pushed to the back-burner and conveniently forgotten. So does the point that a signal or code takes its significance precisely from being an intelligently focused on, observed or chosen and significant alternative from a range of possibilities that then can guide decisive action.])
e: For instance, Marxists commonly derided opponents for their “bourgeois class conditioning” — but what of the effect of their own class origins? Freudians frequently dismissed qualms about their loosening of moral restraints by alluding to the impact of strict potty training on their “up-tight” critics — but doesn’t this cut both ways? Should we not ask a Behaviourist whether s/he is little more than yet another operantly conditioned rat trapped in the cosmic maze? And — as we saw above — would the writings of a Crick be any more than the firing of neurons in networks in his own brain?
f: For further instance, we may take the favourite whipping-boy of materialists: religion. Notoriously, they often hold that belief in God is not merely cognitive, conceptual error, but delusion. Borderline lunacy, in short. But, if such a patent “delusion” is so utterly widespread, even among the highly educated, then it “must” — by the principles of evolution — somehow be adaptive to survival, whether in nature or in society. And so, this would be a major illustration of the unreliability of our conceptual reasoning ability, on the assumption of evolutionary materialism.
g: Turning the materialist dismissal of theism around, evolutionary materialism itself would be in the same leaky boat. For, the sauce for the goose is notoriously just as good a sauce for the gander, too.
h: That is, on its own premises [[and following Dawkins in A Devil’s Chaplain, 2004, p. 46], the cause of the belief system of evolutionary materialism, “must” also be reducible to forces of blind chance and mechanical necessity that are sufficiently adaptive to spread this “meme” in populations of jumped- up apes from the savannahs of East Africa scrambling for survival in a Malthusian world of struggle for existence. Reppert brings the underlying point sharply home, in commenting on the “internalised mouth-noise signals riding on the physical cause-effect chain in a cybernetic loop” view:
. . . let us suppose that brain state A, which is token identical to the thought that all men are mortal, and brain state B, which is token identical to the thought that Socrates is a man, together cause the belief that Socrates is mortal. It isn’t enough for rational inference that these events be those beliefs, it is also necessary that the causal transaction be in virtue of the content of those thoughts . . . [[But] if naturalism is true, then the propositional content is irrelevant to the causal transaction that produces the conclusion, and [[so] we do not have a case of rational inference. In rational inference, as Lewis puts it, one thought causes another thought not by being, but by being seen to be, the ground for it. But causal transactions in the brain occur in virtue of the brain’s being in a particular type of state that is relevant to physical causal transactions. [[Emphases added . . . ]
i: The famous geneticist and evolutionary biologist (as well as Socialist) J. B. S. Haldane made much the same point in a famous 1932 remark:
“It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. In order to escape from this necessity of sawing away the branch on which I am sitting, so to speak, I am compelled to believe that mind is not wholly conditioned by matter.” [[“When I am dead,” in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209.]
j: Therefore, though materialists will often try to pointedly ignore or angrily brush aside the issue, we may freely argue: if such evolutionary materialism is true, then (i) our consciousness, (ii) the “thoughts” we have, (iii) the conceptualised beliefs we hold, (iv) the reasonings we attempt based on such and (v) the “conclusions” and “choices” (a.k.a. “decisions”) we reach — without residue — must be produced and controlled by blind forces of chance happenstance and mechanical necessity that are irrelevant to “mere” ill-defined abstractions such as: purpose or truth, or even logical validity.
(NB: The conclusions of such “arguments” may still happen to be true, by astonishingly lucky coincidence — but we have no rational grounds for relying on the “reasoning” that has led us to feel that we have “proved” or “warranted” them. It seems that rationality itself has thus been undermined fatally on evolutionary materialistic premises. Including that of Crick et al. Through, self-reference leading to incoherence and utter inability to provide a cogent explanation of our commonplace, first-person experience of reasoning and rational warrant for beliefs, conclusions and chosen paths of action. Reduction to absurdity and explanatory failure in short.)
k: And, if materialists then object: “But, we can always apply scientific tests, through observation, experiment and measurement,” then we must immediately note that — as the fate of Newtonian Dynamics between 1880 and 1930 shows — empirical support is not equivalent to establishing the truth of a scientific theory. For, at any time, one newly discovered countering fact can in principle overturn the hitherto most reliable of theories. (And as well, we must not lose sight of this: in science, one is relying on the legitimacy of the reasoning process to make the case that scientific evidence provides reasonable albeit provisional warrant for one’s beliefs etc. Scientific reasoning is not independent of reasoning.) >>
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In short, there is a major issue that materialism is inherently and inescapably self referentially incoherent, undermining its whole scheme of reasoning.
That is a big topic itself.
But, when it comes to the issue of debates over the meaning of chance and inferences to design which implicate intelligence, it is an underlying assumption that plainly leads to endless debates.
In this context, however, the case of 500 coins in a row on a table reading all H or alternating H and T or the first 72 characters of this post in ASCII code, strongly shows the difference in capacity of chance and design as sources of configurations that come from independently and simply describable clusters that are deeply isolated in a space of configs that are such that the atomic resources of our solar system cannot credibly search a big enough fraction to make it reasonable to believe one will stumble upon such configs blindly.
In short, there is a major and directly experienced phenomenon to be accounted for, self aware conscious intellect and related capacities we subsume under the term mind. And this phenomenon is manifest in capacity to design, which is as familiar as composing posts in this thread.
Such designs are well beyond the capacity of blind chance and mechanical necessity, so we have good reason to see that intelligence capable of design is as fundamental in understanding our empirical world as chance and as necessity.
Whatever the worldview consequences — and I think they are huge.>>>
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In short, it seems that one key root of objections to the design inference is the notion that intelligence needed for design in the end reduces to cumulative effects of blind chance and mechanical necessity.
Only, that runs into significant self referential incoherence challenges.
A safer approach would be to recognise that intelligence indisputably exists and indisputably exerts capacities not credibly observed to emerge from blind chance and mechanical necessity. Indeed, on inductive and analytic — needle in haystack — grounds, it is arguable and compelling that certain phenomena such as FSCO/I are reliable signs of design as cause.
Then, we run into the challenge that from its very roots, cell based life is chock full of such signs of design, starting with the genetic code and the size of genomes, from 100 – 1,000 kbits on up.
Then, the observed cosmos itself shows strong and multiple signs of being fine tuned in ways that enable the existence of cell based life on terrestrial planets such as our own — where fine tuning is another empirically grounded sign of being designed.
So, there are good reasons to extend the force of the design inference to the origin of cell based life and of major body plans for such life, and to the origins of the observed cosmos that hosts such life. END
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F/N: I must update by posting this all too aptly accurate debate summary by no less than UD’s inimitable WJM, done here on Christmas day as a gift to the blog and world. WJM, I CANNOT let this one just wash away in the stream of comments! (You ought to separately headline it under your monicker.) Here goes:
Typical debate with an anti-ID advocate:
ID advocate: There are certain things that exist that are best explained by intelligent designed.
Anti-ID advocate: Whoa! Hold up there, fella. “Explained”, in science, means “caused by”. Intelligent design doesn’t by itself “cause” anything.
ID advocate: What I meant is that teleology is required to generate certain things, like a functioning battleship. It can’t come about by chance.
Anti-ID advocate: What do you mean “by chance”? “By” means to cause. Are you claiming that chance causes things to happen?
ID advocate: Of course not. Chance, design and necessity are the three fundamental categories of causation used to characterize the outcomes of various processes and mechanisms. You’re taking objection with colloquialisms that are commonly used in mainstream science and debate. Here are some examples of peer-reviewed, published papers that use these same colloquialisms.
Anti-ID advocate: Those aren’t real scientists!
ID advocate: Those are scientists you yourself have quoted in the past – they are mainstream Darwinists.
ID advocate: I’m using the quotes the same way the authors used them.
Anti-ID advocate: Can you prove it?
ID Advocate: It’s not my job to prove my own innocence, but whatever. Look, it has been accepted for thousands of years that there are only three categories of causation – necessity, or law, chance and artifice, or design. Each category is distinct.
Anti ID advocate: I have no reason to accept that design is a distinct category.
ID advocate: So, you’re saying that battleship or a computer can be generated by a combination of necessity (physical laws) and chance?
Anti-ID advocate: Can you prove otherwise? Are you saying it’s impossible?
ID advocate: No, I’m saying that chance and necessity are not plausible explanations.
Anti-ID advocate: “Explanation” means to “cause” a thing. Chance and necessity don’t “cause” anything.
ID advocate: We’ve already been over this. Those are shorthand ways of talking about processes and mechanisms that produce effects categorized as lawful or chance.
Anti-ID advocate: Shorthand isn’t good enough – we must have specific uses of terms using explicitly laid-out definitions or else debate cannot go forward.
ID advocate: (insert several pages lay out specifics and definitions with citations and historical references).
ID advocate: In summary, this demonstrates that mainstream scientists have long accepted that there are qualitative difference between CSI, or organized, complimentary complexity/functionality, and what can in principle be generated via the causal categories of chance and necessity. Only intelligent or intentional agency is known to be in principle capable of generating such phenomena.
Anti-ID advocate: OMG, you can’t really expect me to read and understand all of that! I don’t understand the way you word things. Is English your first language? It makes my head hurt.
Comments
UB, 69: That sort of arrogant and rudely sneering dismissive attitude and behaviour by RDF is why I have cautioned him to be on good behaviour in this thread. A word to the wise, I mean just what I have said. As for his underlying failure, cf. the just above to Box on how people end up sheepishly carrying a fishing reel back to a tackle shop technician in a box, asking for help. KFkairosfocus
December 30, 2013
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Box, 67:
there is no general encompassing materialistic concept (GEMC) of consciousness
Interesting idea, and abbreviation.
I think you are right, consciousness has not been reduced to computation for the simple reason that computation, a GIGO-limited process . . . garbage in, garbage out . . . what we have is blind mechanical cause-effect linkages of chains of events that take success from separately imposed correct organisation (when they have that). Conscious thought, recognition, organisation and reasoning or imagining and viewing the dynamics intuitively perceived to be at work are qualitatively different.
And when it comes to being under moral government of OUGHT, that is yet another distinction, that a collection of rocks and rock remnants that can have no dreams OUGHT to do X and not Y (which, absent that moral decision, they would be inclined to do) is simple nonsense.
The materialists are looking for a critical threshold where a qualitative leap happens, where in fact they actually cannot account for the simple computation itself (hard and software capable of carrying out algorithms of sufficient complexity) on blind incremental evolutionary forces. But assuming they "must" so be explained, they are seeking to gobble up the next levels, and are ending up in incoherence as I outlined in the OP. (Which, notice, the materialists are studiously ignoring.)
What all of this reminds me of is a shoe-box fishing reel.
Let's explore -- and I hope RDF and MF are looking on.
There are ever so many men who think they can take apart anything and put it back together right again.
So, they have a shiny new fishing reel, and they cannot resist the itch to take it apart, maybe to fix or maintain it, maybe out of curiosity. With an aura of confidence they take it apart, and then suddenly it is a mess of parts they find they cannot put back together.
Sheepishly, they have to go back to the tackle shop to beg the tackle technician there to help them out. (And they better hope they have not misplaced or damaged parts!)
Evolutionary materialists remind me of that case.
Can they explain and support on adequate observations how in a warm little pond or the like, an encapsulated, gated, metabolising entity with a digital code based self replicating facility spontaneously forms, even incrementally? No.
Can they explain how major, multicellular body plans form by similar blind processes adequately backed up with empirical evidence? No.
Can they explain how a chimp like ape ancestor in 6 - 8 or so MY, revises body plan to gain upright posture, and creates the systems that enable symbol-using abstraction-making language (foundational to reasoned intelligence)? No.
But, they are ideologically committed to the world being nothing but matter and energy interacting under mechanical necessity and chance, blindly, across time in space. They have managed to stuff this philosophy in a lab coat and have it speaking in the name of science and censoring methods, conclusions, analysis and even the very definition of science itself.
They have in so doing, locked the reasoning into a materialist circle. Only a materialistic answer will be acceptable.
Then, they resent when someone comes along and says, oops, you got a shoebox fishing reel there. Better take it to people who truly understand epistemology, phil of sci, logic and metaphysics as well as ethics -- and do so without imposing the same materialist question-begging blinkers.
That dog will not hunt.
A sounder approach, will observe that necessity, chance and design all act causally, as can be seen all around us. Then, it will look for reliable signs that mark each of the three, and will compose a reasonable explanatory filter methodology -- cf the aspect by aspect design- chance- necessity inference filter here (I fixed the mysteriously broken image link), noting the discussion of dice as a paradigm case . . . -- to carry out a sensible investigation.
It will test the approach, and will confirm that it is reliable in its purpose and makes sensible assignments to necessity as main default [law is the first explanation for regularities], and chance for contingency [as if chance can account for something, there is no sense demanding design in absence of direct observation] as explanation.
The EF does all o that and is patently highly reliable, with a threshold of 500 - 1,000 bits of FSCO/I before inferring design as only credible cause.
The problem is, this points to some things the materialists don't want to entertain.
Such as a world of life full of signs of design, and a material cosmos that has a beginning and is fine tuned in many ways that facilitate the possibility of C-chemistry aqueous medium cell based life. Where also, as atomic matter etc are clearly contingent, they demand an immaterial explanation, and where the best explanation for a highly complex cosmos that has a beginning and which is finely tuned in ways that point to an evident goal, is design by an intelligent and immaterial, powerful necessary being . . . a mind, not a material process. Even, through a multiverse speculation.
Worse, we have a situation where we find ourselves under moral government, as can be seen from the case of a child kidnapped, tortured, raped and murdered by some monster, and our clear sense of duty should we come across such in progress. OUGHT is real, and it demands a world- foundational IS that can bear its weight. There is but one serious candidate, the eternal inherently good Creator God.
In short, following Leibnitz's point, he who seeks the secret of conscious mindedness in grinding mill wheels is looking in the wrong place.
But, if, a priori, you are committed to reducing intelligence, design, and other aspects of mind to blind chance and mechanical necessity, you will simply refuse to look where you should if you are to have a serious hope of finding a sensible answer.
Which is the point underscored in the OP for this thread, in light of a live example.
KFkairosfocus
December 30, 2013
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RDFish:
Ehm, it seems I have messed up the formatting in my last post. I apologize. However, the meaning should be clear just the same.
[--> Did I fix it right? KF]gpuccio
December 30, 2013
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RDFish:
Let's go on:
You can of course consider every possibility you can dream up. People have considered the intervention of gods for every phenomenon ever observed of course, from earthquakes and volcano eruptions to tides and storms, to, well, everything that happens. That doesn’t mean that such intervention actually constitutes a justified explanation for these phenomena. In order to justify such an hypotheses, one would actually have to supply evidence that such a being existed.
The possibilities I have "dreamed up" are perfectly reasonable. If you consider them "perfectly stupid or ridiculous", you should explain why.
(gpuccio)…and most human beings at all times have believed that non physical conscious agents exist.
(RDFish)Do I actually have to explain why this does not help your case?
It helps a lot. Remember, your argument is that we cannot use assumptions which are "perfectly stupid or ridiculous". Well my statement is only intended that what most human beings at all times, including today, have believed to be true, should not be labeled as "perfectly stupid and ridiculous" without sound arguments (that you have not provided). Or do you think that you are the only intelligent and serious person in the world?
Modulo the religious and paranormal evidence we’ve bracketed for now, this statement has precisely the same problem as this one: “Invisible unicorns that trigger radioactive decay could exist, and the existence of radioactive decay is very strong support of that hypothesis.”
No. There is no observation that connect invisible unicorns to radioactive decay. While there are tons of observations that connect conscious agents to dFSCI, and no contrary observation at all.
I am sorry, but the level of your last statements has definitely become unacceptable. That's why you may think I am a little bit more aggressive than before with them.
I think it is really funny that you think asking for evidence constitutes a bias.
If you want to have fun, be my guest. But I must remind you that asking for non necessary evidence only because an assumption disturbs us is typical cognitive bias. I have already explained that the evidence is all for ID theory, provided one accepts the possibility of conscious agents who are not human and are not physical. Again, it's the theory that must be supported by evidence, not a specific assumption. Provided that that assumption is not "perfectly stupid and ridiculous". Which is exactly where your cognitive bias comes in.
Again, I have already acknowledged that the entirety of the empirical evidence you have amassed in favor of ID involves religious experience and paranormal phenomena. We have deferred discussing the strength of this evidence until we clarify the rest of these issues.
I am always available for that. Whenever you like.
No, read the history. BB theory is accepted because a large number of very specific predictions of Big Bang theory (which would not be expected to occur for any other reason) have been confirmed.
And that is exactly why ID theory must be accepted. most of what we observe in the biological world can be explained, and is predicted, by ID theory, and would not be expected to occur for any other reason. Where is the difference? What am I missing?
Oooh, unfair? Dogmatic? Me? Easy now!
Yes. I have found some of your last statements unfair and dogmatic. That has rather surprised me, because you had been fair and reasonable until now.
The Big Bang hypothesis was suggested many, many years before it was widely accepted. In order to justify belief in the Big Bang, scientists had to figure out how they could tell if it actually happened or not. It wasn’t enough to just assume that it happened, and then point to the universe and say “See? There it is!”. No, they actually had to come up ways to support their hypothesis. And so they did, and produced multiple lines of experimental confirmation of very specific predictions made by BB theory before it was accepted as the best explanation.
No. There is no experimental way of deciding if Big Bang "actually happened or not". Big Bang cannot be observed. It cannot be understood. We can only infer it from its consequences, because it explains them better than any other available theory. And new observations, up to now, are in general accord with the theory, in one of its form (you know there are, however, problems).
The scenario is exactly the same for the origin by design of biological information. There is no difference.
First, I have shown why ID is not a good explanation at all, so I am not “refuting a good explanation”. Second, it doesn’t matter one bit whether or not I have a better explanation – I am still quite justified in informing you that your explanation lacks empirical justification. And third, you again stoop to ad hominem analysis of my motives, which is indeed a fallacy.
Wow! Three completely unwarranted statement in a row! That's what I meant by "the level of your last statements has definitely become unacceptable". I maintain that judgement.
You had just said that ID was “the only possible explanation available”. I pointed out what should have been obvious, that you have no idea what explanations may turn out to be true and so you are unjustified in declaring your explanation was the only one available! I am not presuming anything about the explanation, remember? I’m the one who says the answer is “We do not know”!
What is not clear in the word "available"? I suppose that "available" means an explanation we know. The "explanations that may turn out to be true" are certainly not available. Or am I missing something?
Science is made with the empirically justified explanations we have, and when there are no empirically confirmed explanations at hand, the correct answer is “We do not (yet) know the answer to that question”. What you want to do is insert divine intervention into our mysteries and call it “science”, which is what I object to.
The ID explanation is very much empirically justified, as I have shown. It certainly deserves to be considered, tested, and to be a paradigm (not the only one) for future research.
“We do not (yet) know the answer to that question” only helps when the answer is actively searched with an open mind, considering all possible explanations which have a sound empirical basis, and ID is simply the best in the market for those questions.
Just to be precise, I have never spoken of a divine intervention. I believe that a design inference is perfectly justified to explain biological information. For obvious empirical reasons, I don't think that humans are the designer, and I am not convinced by the alien hypothesis, therefore it seems natural to think of non human, non physical conscious agents as possible designers. That is all. The problem of God is all another matter, as is the problem of what the Big Bang really was.
Um, lies? Do you suggest now that as well as being unfair, dogmatic, biased, a believer in fairy tales, and definitely lost, I also promote lies? You seem to be having trouble sticking to the debate, and are increasingly prone to attacking me personally. I find this usually happens when my arguments are much better than my opponents’.
No. If you look at my statement, you will see that there are no references to you in it. It is a more general statement, and I do believe that there are many people who lie on your side. But I believe in your sincerity, unless and until you give me reason to change my mind.
I have no reason at all to attack you personally, and I don't think I have done that. It is true, however, as I have said, that some of your last statements are, IMO, unfair, dogmatic and biased. As I have said. And some of the things you believe and state are, IMO, fairy tales. That in no way applies to all or to most of what you say. I have appreciated most of what you have said in this debate, even when disagreeing with you. My stating so frankly what I have not appreciated is, believe it or not, a sign of great confidence in you.
But, if you want to consider that as a sign that your arguments are much better than mine, that's OK for me.
Cheers!gpuccio
December 30, 2013
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RDFish:
Let's go on:
There are no well-supported explanations for the origin of the universe or of life, and so there is no reason to pick one or another just because it is somehow less lacking in evidence than the other.
Here it seems that you are changing the discussion. I have already acknowledged that the origin of the universe is in another league if compared to the origin and evolution (don't forget that small point) of life.
And yet, even for the origin if the universe, we have a scientific theory (the Big Bang), which maybe does not explain all, but which explains something.
Now, the central claim of ID theory is not, as you seem to think, the existence of non physical conscious beings. That is a possible consequence of ID theory, not its central claim.
The central claim of ID is the presence in biological information of a definite property, dFSCI, which is observed, out of biological information, only in designed things. And that no theory which does not include the intervention of a conscious designer can, even vaguely, begin to explain that simple observed fact.
Now, you can just say that any theory that includes as an assumption the existence of conscious designers which would probably be non physical is perfectly stupid and ridiculous, but that is only your cognitive bias speaking.
For all those who don't share that bias, the reasoning is simple and powerful and beautiful
So, to sum up, even if you don't like to explain dFSCI in biological information by a design theory, you still need to try to explain it. IOWs, fact show that many times, in the course of natural history, there has been a rather sudden generation of complex functional information, without any apparent "natural" explanation. The input of such information by a designer is a possible explanation. You consider it stupid and ridiculous. Be my guest. So, how do you think you can try to explain dFSCI in biological information, and its documented appearance in natural history?
Beware, I am not asking you to try to explain the universe, or life itself. Those are much bigger questions. I am referring to a very definite, observable fact. The emergence of dFSCI in natural history.
If your theory is built on suspect assumptions, so much the worse for your theory! Do you not understand that you must actually justify your assumptions? That you can’t just make up any sort of assumption, build some theory on it, and then complain when someone dares to question your assumptions?
No. As I have said, I must not justify my assumptions, provided they are not stupid and ridiculous. What I have to justify is the value of the whole theory. Again, see the example of the Big Bang.
I was recently mystified that my computer password was changed somehow when nobody was home. If I assumed that my dog (who was home at the time) has the requisite computer skills, I could explain the mystery quite well. But that assumption is utterly ridiculous, and I would fully expect you to point that out, and it would not be your bad epistemology or cognitive bias that would be the problem – it would be my unwarranted assumption.
(Emphasis mine). Again, your cognitive bias fully demonstrated.
Seriously, do you really not believe in the germ theory of disease? Or that cigarettes actually have been scientifically shown to cause cancer? You don’t think those statements are correct? Really? Wow! I’d hate to have you as my doctor :-)
And I have no special desire to have you as my client, also because I am a pediatrician, and you are probably out of age :)
The problem here is that you have made an improper generalization from “human being” to a class of “conscious agents”. This generalization is improper because you have only a single type of being capable of design, namely a human being, and you have no idea what other beings in this hypothetical class of beings would share or not share with human beings. This gets back to what I keep telling you, and you keep ignoring: We do not know that humans can design things because they are conscious; it could be, for all we know, that consciousness is not an attribute that would be shared by everything capable of producing complex designs. Read that last sentence again before you respond to something I didn’t say; I have a feeling you are going to skip that point or get it wrong.
It is a generalization, but it is not improper. Humans are conscious agents. There are probably other conscious agents, like higher animals.
That design is the product of a conscious agent is neither a generalization nor an improper one: it is simply the definition of design.
That dFSCI is observed only in designed things (or in things that may or may not be designed, like biological objects) is simply a fact.
That the intervention of a conscious agent is always connected to the presence of dFSCI, even in those cases where the origin by design is not independently ascertained, and even in cases where the designer could not be human, is a very reasonable inference by analogy. You can like it or not, you can accept it or not, it may be confirmed by new facts or falsified, like every other scientific inference. But there is nothing unacceptable in it. And it is very reasonable and convincing.
You say:
"We do not know that humans can design things because they are conscious; it could be, for all we know, that consciousness is not an attribute that would be shared by everything capable of producing complex designs."
OK, and so? That only means that whoever can empirically show that non conscious system can generate dFSCI will have falsified the theory. That just means that the theory is perfectly scientific, in a Popperian sense. That is its merit, not its fault.
Remember, we are discussion empirical inferences here, not logical demonstration. Don't equivocate.
And yes, I have read your sentence before responding. I usually do that.
(gpuccio)I need not demonstrate that consciousness is causal to the generation of dFSCI
(RDFish)Well, you do if you wish to claim that ID is an empirically justified theory. Otherwise, sure – you can just concede that no such demonstration is possible, and we can agree that ID is nothing but unsupported conjecture.
Bad reasoning again. I don't need to demonstrate the causality, although I believe that there are many reasons to infer it as the best explanation. I just need to demonstrate the connection. IOWs, consciousness could even be an epiphenomenon, but at present it is an epiphenomenon that is always present in agents who can generate dFSCI. And it is connected to the design process, because the information outputted into the object is always present, before, in the conscious representations of the agent. In all cases, it remains an indicator connected to the emergence of dFSCI with 100% specificity.
And once again I will point out your error: The constant connection is in fact between dFSCI and human beings. Human beings have a number of attributes that might (or might not) be sufficient or necessary for design; one of these attributes might be a human-like brain, or some other sort of complex physical information processing mechanisms, or conscious awareness, and so on. You choose to pick one of these attributes, namely consciousness, and ignore all other attributes of human beings, and you pretend that you are justified in saying that this one attribute is both necessary and sufficient for the design of dFSCI. Well, sorry, but you have no justification for your position, and it is nothing but conjecture.
As I have explained, it is perfectly reasonable to infer that consciousness plays at least some role in generating dFSCI, because the information is present in the conscious representation before being outputted to the object. Moreover, understanding of meaning and purposeful intention are exactly the faculties that drive the design process, as should be obvious to whoever has designed complex things. Your attempts not only at at doubting that (which is your right), but at stating that everybody should doubt that, and that it is not reasonable to assume that connection to explain things that cannot be explained otherwise is, again, pure cognitive bias. No offence intended.
But I am fully available at considering your alternative explanations. So, please, what "other attributes of human beings", outside of consciousness, would you pick to explain the ability to generate dFSCI? Having a human brain? That's fine. So, your hypothesis is that having a human brain is the causal explanation of dFSCI. And therefore, biological dFSCI can be explained by the intervention of systems having a human brain, I suppose. Is that your position?
I must have missed something in your logic.
(gpuccio)It’s only your cognitive bias that motivates you to deny the undeniable.
(RDFish)We’ve been doing pretty well in avoiding ad hominem arguments so far. I’d appreciate it if you would stick to the argument, and leave your (misguided) psychoanalysis of my motivations out of it. Can we do that?
I am really surprised by that statement of yours. As I have said, cognitive bias is not a disease. Everybody is subject to it. It is my intellectual right to state what, IMO, is due to cognitive bias in your arguments, obviously giving detailed reasons for that. As I have tried to do. What has psychoanalysis to do with that (misguided or not)? What have "your motivations" to do with that, out of your being biased by your worldview, like everybody else?
The point is, when your cognitive bias becomes obvious in your arguments, I point it out. You defend it, if you like.
More in next post.gpuccio
December 30, 2013
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RDFish:
Well, so be it then: You apparently concede that the central claim of ID is an unsupported conjecture.
Absolutely not. That's only what appears to you. I have simply stated (not certainly "conceded") that a conjecture is part of the ID theory. I have said that such conjecture is supported by some empirical evidence (and that we disagree on the strength of that evidence). And I have stated that however there is no need that an assumption, or conjecture, which is part of a theory be supported by independent evidence. It is the whole theory that must be supported by evidence, not a specific assumption. I have made the example of the Big Bang exactly for that. And you have not really answered my point.
We have no independent evidence of the Big Bang. Big Bang is an event which is conjectured, and whose real nature is not understood. We have evidences that a theory which includes that conjecture explain things, and predicts things, better than any other theory at present available. Which is exactly my point about ID.
I’ve responded to this, but let me be more clear: OF COURSE all of our scientific results are provisional. I’ve made that very point on these forums many times. We fully agree on this point. But that has nothing to do with our disagreements here.
OK.
Now before you try and derail the conversation again, saying that the truth of some result is well established DOES NOT MEAN that we are absolutely 100% certain of it’s truth and it can never, ever be doubted or disproven! Rather, it is simply acknowledging that given the strength of the evidence, it is not reasonable to doubt these results until and unless new information comes to light that casts doubt on them.
Again: You can stop arguing about the certainty of scientific (or any) conclusions; nobody is saying that these results can be proven with absolute certainty, and we all understand the provisional nature of scientific theories. That isn’t at issue here, OK?
OK. That is exactly my position. And I have never tried to "derail the conversation". I just want that epistemological concepts remain correct. I would appreciate if you avoided to use terms like "true" and "correct" when they are not correct. We will get along much better that way.
Feel better? Ok, can we now get back to our discussion? Nothing you just said has anything whatsoever to do with any point I’ve made here.
Yes, I feel better. But, if you don't consider it another attempt at derailing the conversation, I would appreciate you thoughts on my statement:
"Moreover, I must remind you that consensus is scarcely a guarantee of how well a theory explains things. As philosophers of science well know, and certainly you with them, cultural bias and cognitive bias are always at the door. That’s why the least consistent and least empirically supported theory of our times, neo-darwinism, is still proclaimed as a “fact, and not a theory”, and endorsed as something “more certain than the theory of gravitation” by present academy. That simply means that we can expect anything from “scientific consensus”."
Do you agree?
What we do seem to disagree about regarding justification for scientific results is this: Let’s say we have some unexplained phenomenon, and then we come up with two perfectly stupid and ridiculous hypotheses that, if either were true, would explain the phenomenon (such as “little invisible unicorns are responsible” and “magic incantations from the future are responsible”). Even if someone could argue that one of these silly explanations is somehow not as terrible as the other one, clearly neither of these explanations ought to be considered to be justified as knowledge. In other words, we don’t adopt the best explanation of something unless that explanation actually has sufficient warrant – not just because it is not as baseless as other explanations.
Well, with these words you allow me to show clearly what your cognitive bias is. And, before you accuse me of ad hominem attacks, I would like to remind you that we are by definition subject to cognitive bias, and that it is perfectly legitimate that I describe your cognitive bias where I see it in the course of a discussion. It is no ad hominem attack. Just intellectual confrontation.
That said, the crucial point is in these words of yours:
"Let’s say we have some unexplained phenomenon, and then we come up with two perfectly stupid and ridiculous hypotheses that, if either were true, would explain the phenomenon" (emphasis mine).
So, what you are saying that a possible explanation should not be considered, even is others are not available, if its assumtions are "perfectly stupid and ridiculous". That is completely different from saying that an assumption is not supported by independent facts.
To go back to Big Bang. The theory is certainly supported by evidence, because it explains both old and new facts better than any other available theory. But the existence of the Big Bang event is not understood at all, and cannot be supported by any direct observation.
Now, if I have a strong cognitive bias against Big Bangs, I could say (and many did it, indeed): "No, an event like the Big Bamg is simply a perfectly stupid and ridiculous assumption, and therefore any theory including that assumption should not be regarded as scientific, even if it explain known and new facts better than any other available theory". And you could answer: "No, it is only your cognitive bias, you worldview, which makes you think that the existence of a Big Bang is ridiculous or stupid. A lot of people, including me, believe that it is a perfectly acceptable idea, even if we cannot understand what it is, or have any direct evidence of it".
That is exactly what is happening here. You are just saying that accepting the possibility of the existence of non physical conscious beings (something most human beings indeed have believed and still believe) is "perfectly stupid and ridiculous". This is your cognitive bias, and I am simply describing it. No offense (or derailment) intended.
Um, I think I just got through saying “with the exception of the evidence you’ve mentioned having to do with paranormal phenomena and religious experience.” That is the empirical support you are alluding to, correct?
Well, I was alluding, clearly, to "religious experiences and NDEs", which is my original quote. I don't understand why you go on introducing the term "paranormal phenomena". To what do you refer? Do you think either religious experiences or NDEs are "paranormal"? If so, I would appreciate that you explained why (if you do not consider it as an attempt at derailing the conversation).
This is confused, because you are equivocating on the meaning of the “consciousness”. Our subjective phenomenology is a fact, and our ability to design things is a fact. But despite what you say, the relationship between those two things is not at all a fact! Again, let me be even more clear: You have provided no reason to justify your assertion that consciousness is required to create CSI. Your assumptions regarding the connections are not facts – they are your unsupported assumptions.
I will be more clear. "Our subjective phenomenology", which is exactly what I call consciousness, as I have tried to explain in great detail, is a fact, and our ability to design things is a fact. So, we seem to agree about that. And I don't understand why you state that I am "equivocating" on the "meaning" of consciousness. I think I have been very clear about what the word means for me, and you seem to have understood it well.
Then I define design as a process where there is the output of some functional form (not necessarily complex) from a conscious representation on a conscious agent to a material object. That is exactly what the word means. Have you problems with that?
Then I state that we can observe a constant empirical association (not necessarily a causal relationship) between dFCSI in an object and design, that is the intervention of a conscious agent, in all cases where the origin of the object can be ascertained independently. Have you problems with that? I have shown that that empirical connection is true with 100% specificity.
You say: "You have provided no reason to justify your assertion that consciousness is required to create CSI." But that was not my purpose. That is only my personal conviction. For the purposes of my theory, it is more than enough to justify that we can observe a constant connection between two things in all known cases. That is a vsatly reliable foundation for an inference.
Then you say:
"Your assumptions regarding the connections are not facts – they are your unsupported assumptions."
I am afraid that here your bad epistemology surfaces again. Connection between events are never facts. They are mental concepts, therefore theories. So, you are just accusing me of not being able to show that what cannot be a fact is not a fact- Well, I will take that accusation as a compliment.
So, let's say that a connection between facts is always an assumption, or better an inference. So what are you saying? That my inference of a connection between dFSCI and the intervention of a conscious agent is "unsupported by facts"? But is is supported by facts in all known cases! You cannot deny that! You can deny that a causal role of consciousness is the explanation for the connection. Well, you are welcome. I don't agree, but that is not important. The connection is there however, and we can certainly use it for reasonable empirical inferences.
More in next post.gpuccio
December 30, 2013
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RDF Dec2013: You seem to be having trouble sticking to the debate, and are increasingly prone to attacking me personally. I find this usually happens when my arguments are much better than my opponents’.
RDF Nov2013: No, you are of course the one who is confused … none of you ID folks are able to follow any sort of subtle or conditional argumentation … you apparently require a great deal of repitition before you can actually comprehend these things … If you were able to read and understand language a little better … your bizarre notion … is simply nonsensical … What you fail to understand (among other things) … we need to work through that step-by-step, so you don’t get confused … You have put your fingers in your ears, and you are screaming for me to stop telling you what the truth is, because you don’t want to hear it. “END!” you cry. “Stop, please, don’t say any more about the designer because I can’t stand to hear it! My precious beliefs in transcendent mind are too fragile to discuss, and so I forbid any discussion that might make me evaluate my beliefs against the evidence!” … That is simply pathetic. You are pretending to base your religious beliefs on scientific evidence, but when it doesn’t go your way, all you do is shout out “END! YOU CAN’T TALK ABOUT THAT!” … If you aren’t willing to take the evidence where it leads, then stop pretending to care about evidence, and just admit your beliefs are faith-based like all of those good old-fashioned religious people used to do … Oh good grief – can’t you read? … I know you won’t respond to that – you’ll just ignore it again, your fear and loathing preventing you from understanding these simple points … The real targets of my arguments are people like you who attempt to co-opt the imprimatur of science in order to push their own particular religious beliefs upon others, but then are afraid to actually subject their views to the sort of critique that all scientific results must be subjected to. You want to claim that science shows your religious views are correct, but then refuse to discuss all of the empirical evidence that may be inconsistent your beliefs. “End!” you cry! “No more evidence, please!”
:|Upright BiPed
December 29, 2013
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Hi gpuccio,
OK, so be it. We disagree. I will stick to my “conjectural” statement. [that CSI can only come from conscious minds]
Well, so be it then: You apparently concede that the central claim of ID is an unsupported conjecture.
Again, hypotheses and theories can be more or less controversial, or sometimes not controversial at all, but they are never “verified”.
I've responded to this, but let me be more clear: OF COURSE all of our scientific results are provisional. I've made that very point on these forums many times. We fully agree on this point. But that has nothing to do with our disagreements here.
Obviously you didn't challenge the truth of any of the scientific results I listed - because to do so would have been entirely unreasonable. The truth of these hypotheses is quite well established. Now before you try and derail the conversation again, saying that the truth of some result is well established DOES NOT MEAN that we are absolutely 100% certain of it's truth and it can never, ever be doubted or disproven! Rather, it is simply acknowledging that given the strength of the evidence, it is not reasonable to doubt these results until and unless new information comes to light that casts doubt on them.
Again: You can stop arguing about the certainty of scientific (or any) conclusions; nobody is saying that these results can be proven with absolute certainty, and we all understand the provisional nature of scientific theories. That isn't at issue here, OK?
Moreover, I must remind you that consensus is scarcely a guarantee of how well a theory explains things. As philosophers of science well know, and certainly you with them, cultural bias and cognitive bias are always at the door. That’s why the least consistent and least empirically supported theory of our times, neo-darwinism, is still proclaimed as a “fact, and not a theory”, and endorsed as something “more certain than the theory of gravitation” by present academy. That simply means that we can expect anything from “scientific consensus”.
Feel better? Ok, can we now get back to our discussion? Nothing you just said has anything whatsoever to do with any point I've made here.
If our hypothesis explains facts better than competing hypotheses, and makes better predictions, it is simply the best explanation available. Not the truth. The best explanation available. From a scientific point of view, that’s a very good thing.
And yet again, these are all perfectly obvious statements about science, and I've never said anything conflicting with any of these statements. Again, this is not what we disagree about.
What we do seem to disagree about regarding justification for scientific results is this: Let's say we have some unexplained phenomenon, and then we come up with two perfectly stupid and ridiculous hypotheses that, if either were true, would explain the phenomenon (such as "little invisible unicorns are responsible" and "magic incantations from the future are responsible"). Even if someone could argue that one of these silly explanations is somehow not as terrible as the other one, clearly neither of these explanations ought to be considered to be justified as knowledge. In other words, we don't adopt the best explanation of something unless that explanation actually has sufficient warrant - not just because it is not as baseless as other explanations.
There are no well-supported explanations for the origin of the universe or of life, and so there is no reason to pick one or another just because it is somehow less lacking in evidence than the other.
RDF: What we disagree about is whether or not your assumption that consciousness is necessary for the production of CSI has any empirical support. Since we do not understand what consciousness is, nor what it does, nor what are the necessary and sufficient conditions for its existence, nor how we accomplish design tasks, I think it is very clear that your assumption is without any empirical support at all – with the exception of the evidence you’ve mentioned having to do with paranormal phenomena and religious experience.
GP: First of all, my assumption has empirical support. And we disagree on its “strength”.
Um, I think I just got through saying "with the exception of the evidence you’ve mentioned having to do with paranormal phenomena and religious experience." That is the empirical support you are alluding to, correct?
Consciousness is a fact, and can be treated as such. “Explaining” it, or “understanding what it is” is not necessary to use it in a theory. Facts must not be understood or explained to be included in theories. They must only be correctly observed and described.
This is confused, because you are equivocating on the meaning of the "consciousness". Our subjective phenomenology is a fact, and our ability to design things is a fact. But despite what you say, the relationship between those two things is not at all a fact! Again, let me be even more clear: You have provided no reason to justify your assertion that consciousness is required to create CSI. Your assumptions regarding the connections are not facts - they are your unsupported assumptions.
Your problem is that, not being able to criticize the power of the theory, you criticize the assumption. That is bad epistemology, and strong cognitive bias.
If your theory is built on suspect assumptions, so much the worse for your theory! Do you not understand that you must actually justify your assumptions? That you can't just make up any sort of assumption, build some theory on it, and then complain when someone dares to question your assumptions?
Sorry, it really doesn't work that way at all. If you want to claim empirical justification for your theory, people get to challenge all of your assumptions and all of your data and your inferences too. It is neither bad epistemology (!) nor cognitive bias to point out your assumptions lack justification!
I was recently mystified that my computer password was changed somehow when nobody was home. If I assumed that my dog (who was home at the time) has the requisite computer skills, I could explain the mystery quite well. But that assumption is utterly ridiculous, and I would fully expect you to point that out, and it would not be your bad epistemology or cognitive bias that would be the problem - it would be my unwarranted assumption.
I disagree – I think explanations are valuable only to the extent that they are correct. The explanations of disease that encouraged people to sacrifice animals to gods rather than wash their hands before eating were not better than nothing, for example.
Again, very bad epistemology. Explanations are never “correct”.
Seriously, do you really not believe in the germ theory of disease? Or that cigarettes actually have been scientifically shown to cause cancer? You don't think those statements are correct? Really? Wow! I'd hate to have you as my doctor :-)
ID theory, by recognizing an empirical property of objects, dFSCI, that is linked to the intervention of some conscious agent in all cases whose true origin can be ascertained, allows a very reasonable inference of design by a conscious agent for all objects with dFSCI, and whose origin cannot be ascertained independently.
The problem here is that you have made an improper generalization from "human being" to a class of "conscious agents". This generalization is improper because you have only a single type of being capable of design, namely a human being, and you have no idea what other beings in this hypothetical class of beings would share or not share with human beings. This gets back to what I keep telling you, and you keep ignoring: We do not know that humans can design things because they are conscious; it could be, for all we know, that consciousness is not an attribute that would be shared by everything capable of producing complex designs. Read that last sentence again before you respond to something I didn't say; I have a feeling you are going to skip that point or get it wrong.
This is very good scientific reasoning. Your objections to that are pointless.
No, this is very bad reasoning, and my objections are completely valid. :-)
I need not demonstrate that consciousness is causal to the generation of dFSCI
Well, you do if you wish to claim that ID is an empirically justified theory. Otherwise, sure - you can just concede that no such demonstration is possible, and we can agree that ID is nothing but unsupported conjecture.
I just need to establish the constant connection between dFSCI and the intervention of a conscious agent. And that you cannot deny, because facts support that statement completely.
And once again I will point out your error: The constant connection is in fact between dFSCI and human beings. Human beings have a number of attributes that might (or might not) be sufficient or necessary for design; one of these attributes might be a human-like brain, or some other sort of complex physical information processing mechanisms, or conscious awareness, and so on. You choose to pick one of these attributes, namely consciousness, and ignore all other attributes of human beings, and you pretend that you are justified in saying that this one attribute is both necessary and sufficient for the design of dFSCI. Well, sorry, but you have no justification for your position, and it is nothing but conjecture.
It’s only your cognitive bias that motivates you to deny the undeniable.
We've been doing pretty well in avoiding ad hominem arguments so far. I'd appreciate it if you would stick to the argument, and leave your (misguided) psychoanalysis of my motivations out of it. Can we do that?
But all known facts suggest that, at various points in natural history, functional information was repeatedly inputted in living beings, and that is exactly what we observe when there is an intervention by a conscious designer. That’s why it is perfectly natural to consider the posiibility of some non physical designer.
You can of course consider every possibility you can dream up. People have considered the intervention of gods for every phenomenon ever observed of course, from earthquakes and volcano eruptions to tides and storms, to, well, everything that happens. That doesn't mean that such intervention actually constitutes a justified explanation for these phenomena. In order to justify such an hypotheses, one would actually have to supply evidence that such a being existed.
But here your bias becomes evident. You object that we have no evidence of the existence of such a designer, ans ask for it.
I think it is really funny that you think asking for evidence constitutes a bias.
I can answer that we have no evidence that such a designer does not exist...
Obviously you have again misunderstood how hypotheses are evaluated. If I hypothesize that invisible unicorns are responsible for so-called spontaneous radioactive decay, in order for my hypothesis to be considered to be empirically justified, I would actually have to provide some evidence such unicorns exist. The fact that you cannot prove otherwise in no way makes my hypothesis true by default.
..., indeed we have many empirical indications that it exists (on whose strength we disagree),
Again, I have already acknowledged that the entirety of the empirical evidence you have amassed in favor of ID involves religious experience and paranormal phenomena. We have deferred discussing the strength of this evidence until we clarify the rest of these issues.
...and most human beings at all times have believed that non physical conscious agents exist.
Do I actually have to explain why this does not help your case?
The fact remains that such agent or agents could exist, and that the existence of biological information and of dFSCI in it is a very strong support to that hypothesis.
Modulo the religious and paranormal evidence we've bracketed for now, this statement has precisely the same problem as this one: "Invisible unicorns that trigger radioactive decay could exist, and the existence of radioactive decay is very strong support of that hypothesis."
Nope, you really can't just make up explanations and then point to thing you're explaining as support. If you could, the following would be science:
Ted: What causes crop circles?
Fred: The cereological force.
Ted: How do you know there is a cereological force?
Fred: Just look at all the crop circles!
Now, let’s consider some similar scenarios. Let’s take the theory of Big Bang. Why do most scientists believe that the Big Bang happened? It is simple: because some things we observe now are best explained by that assumption.
No, read the history. BB theory is accepted because a large number of very specific predictions of Big Bang theory (which would not be expected to occur for any other reason) have been confirmed.
If I were strongly motivated not to accept the assunption of the Big Bang, I could say that I require independent verification and evidence that the Big Bang happened, that it is a fallacy that I use the things that the Big Bang should explain as evidence for it. IOWs, I could act as you are acting: unfairly, dogmatically, ready to all in order to justify my cognitive bias. What can I tell you? Good luck…
Oooh, unfair? Dogmatic? Me? Easy now!
The Big Bang hypothesis was suggested many, many years before it was widely accepted. In order to justify belief in the Big Bang, scientists had to figure out how they could tell if it actually happened or not. It wasn't enough to just assume that it happened, and then point to the universe and say "See? There it is!". No, they actually had to come up ways to support their hypothesis. And so they did, and produced multiple lines of experimental confirmation of very specific predictions made by BB theory before it was accepted as the best explanation.
The fallacy is yours, and it is as big as a whole universe! It is the fallacy of refuting a good explanation, for observed things without having any better explanation, only because you don’t like it
First, I have shown why ID is not a good explanation at all, so I am not "refuting a good explanation". Second, it doesn't matter one bit whether or not I have a better explanation - I am still quite justified in informing you that your explanation lacks empirical justification. And third, you again stoop to ad hominem analysis of my motives, which is indeed a fallacy.
..., and appealing to the myth of “possible explanations to come”, of which you don’t give any real hint. That is not science. That is dogma, based on fairy tales.
You had just said that ID was "the only possible explanation available". I pointed out what should have been obvious, that you have no idea what explanations may turn out to be true and so you are unjustified in declaring your explanation was the only one available! I am not presuming anything about the explanation, remember? I'm the one who says the answer is "We do not know"!
Science is made with the explanations we have. Or by finding better explanation. It is not made by saying that “the answers may be stranger than we can imagine or understand”. That is only bad philosophy. And it is completely unfair.
Science is made with the empirically justified explanations we have, and when there are no empirically confirmed explanations at hand, the correct answer is "We do not (yet) know the answer to that question". What you want to do is insert divine intervention into our mysteries and call it "science", which is what I object to.
A design model will help us to make real progress. Lies do not help to do that.
Um, lies? Do you suggest now that as well as being unfair, dogmatic, biased, a believer in fairy tales, and definitely lost, I also promote lies? You seem to be having trouble sticking to the debate, and are increasingly prone to attacking me personally. I find this usually happens when my arguments are much better than my opponents'.
Cheers,
RDFish/AIGuyRDFish
December 29, 2013
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Gpuccio #66 Second, not understanding what consciousness is no problem for including it in a theory. Consciousness is a fact, and can be treated as such. “Explaining” it, or “understanding what it is” is not necessary to use it in a theory. Facts must not be understood or explained to be included in theories. They must only be correctly observed and described.
Gpuccio makes many excellent points and this is one of them. Allow me to add an obvious inference: consciousness cannot be added in a materialistic theory without invalidating it as a materialistic theory. And the main reason is because there is no general encompassing materialistic concept (GEMC) of consciousness.
As an aside, I would like to point out that the same goes for “life” (or “organism” or “being”). Any materialistic theory that includes “life” invalidates itself as a materialistic theory - because there is no GEMC of “life”.
The 1879 version of Darwin’s Origins mentions “life” 389 times, “organism” (or organisms) 84 times, “being” (or beings) 490 times. Each and every time without a GEMC - which makes Darwinism unsuitable for materialism.Box
December 29, 2013
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RDFish:
In order:
So this is a central disagreement between us. I don’t think we have any theory, any principle, or any evidence that can support this assertion. Consciousness is not something we understand, and neither is our ability to design things, so making these sorts of statements is purely conjectural (even to the extent that the concepts, such as the “I”, are well-defined).
OK, so be it. We disagree. I will stick to my "conjectural" statement.
This is true in a very strict epistemological sense of course, but the fact is we all know a huge number of scientific hypotheses that have been shown to be correct. Do you not believe that cigarettes can cause lung cancer, or that obesity contributes to diabetes, or that seat belts save lives overall? How about that light bends around massive objects, travels through space unmediated, and has a speed independent of its source? All of these statements (and as many others as we’d like to think up) were once controversial hypotheses, are now very well-established truths. But none of these were taken as “assumptions” – they were all hypotheses that had to be verified by scientific research.
Epistemology is everything in science. Renounce even a little bit of your epistemology, and you are lost. And, IMO, you are definitely lost.
Again, hypotheses and theories can be more or less controversial, or sometimes not controversial at all, but they are never "verified".
Some theories work very well, explain very well what we observe, and are not falsified by observations. We use them, we consider them a treasure, but still they are not "verified", least of all "well-established truths". And still they can be falsified by new facts. So, I will leave you to your "truths", and keep my good theories.
Moreover, I must remind you that consensus is scarcely a guarantee of how well a theory explains things. As philosophers of science well know, and certainly you with them, cultural bias and cognitive bias are always at the door. That's why the least consistent and least empirically supported theory of our times, neo-darwinism, is still proclaimed as a "fact, and not a theory", and endorsed as something "more certain than the theory of gravitation" by present academy. That simply means that we can expect anything from "scientific consensus".
Simply making an assumption that we find provides a satisfying explanation for some phenomenon is only the start of process. In order to claim it as knowledge, we have to find ways to justify our belief.
I have never told anything different. I quote myself:
"Assumptions are part of an hypothesis, or more generally of a theory. You seem not to understand that scientific hypotheses can never be shown to be correct. At best, they can be falsified. The only thing we can show is that our hypotheses are in some way supported by known facts, in the sense that they explain them better than competing hypotheses, and sometimes (but not always) in the sense that they make better predictions". (Emphasis added).
If our hypothesis explains facts better than competing hypotheses, and makes better predictions, it is simply the best explanation available. Not the truth. The best explanation available. From a scientific point of view, that's a very good thing.
So, it should be clear that, for me, assumptions are the building blocks of theories, and that theories (and not their assumptions) are judged according to their explanatory and predicting value. This is my epistemology, and I believe it is good. And I stick to it.
This is not at all what we disagree about. What we disagree about is whether or not your assumption that consciousness is necessary for the production of CSI has any empirical support. Since we do not understand what consciousness is, nor what it does, nor what are the necessary and sufficient conditions for its existence, nor how we accomplish design tasks, I think it is very clear that your assumption is without any empirical support at all – with the exception of the evidence you’ve mentioned having to do with paranormal phenomena and religious experience.
First of all, my assumption has empirical support. And we disagree on its "strength".
Second, not understanding what consciousness is no problem for including it in a theory. Consciousness is a fact, and can be treated as such. "Explaining" it, or "understanding what it is" is not necessary to use it in a theory. Facts must not be understood or explained to be included in theories. They must only be correctly observed and described.
Third, as I have tried to explain, assumption are part of a theory. They must not have "empirical support" (although, like in our case, they can certainly have it). It is the general theory, built on those assumptions, that must be judged according to its explanatory power and its predictions. Your problem is that, not being able to criticize the power of the theory, you criticize the assumption. That is bad epistemology, and strong cognitive bias.
I disagree – I think explanations are valuable only to the extent that they are correct. The explanations of disease that encouraged people to sacrifice animals to gods rather than wash their hands before eating were not better than nothing, for example.
Again, very bad epistemology. Explanations are never "correct". They can be good explanations or bad explanations. A good explanation must have explanatory power. Neo-darwinism, for example, has absolutely no explanatory power, and still people consider it a good theory. It is a bad theory, because it does not explain anything.
A theory can explain facts rather well, and still at some moment be falsified just the same. That's why an explanation can be good, but is never "correct".
So you can see that you can’t use the phenomenon you are attempting to explain as evidence that your hypothesis is true. Once you invent an hypotheses that explains your observation, you must find evidence that is not simply your original observation that supports your hypothesis. Otherwise, it would be very easy to provide support for anything we choose to believe!
No. There is no fallacy. It is your misrepresentation and your cognitive bias, nothing else.
Let's see. I wrote:
"The biological life itself is certainly an empirical fact, and according to ID theory it does support that some sort of conscious entity existed prior to biological life…"
My reasoning is very simple and very good. ID theory, by recognizing an empirical property of objects, dFSCI, that is linked to the intervention of some conscious agent in all cases whose true origin can be ascertained, allows a very reasonable inference of design by a conscious agent for all objects with dFSCI, and whose origin cannot be ascertained independently. This is very good scientific reasoning. Your objections to that are pointless. I need not demonstrate that consciousness is causal to the generation of dFSCI (although I certainly believe that, and it is certainly extremely reasonable to believe that). I just need to establish the constant connection between dFSCI and the intervention of a conscious agent. And that you cannot deny, because facts support that statement completely. It's only your cognitive bias that motivates you to deny the undeniable.
Now, that means that biological information becomes immediately an enigma. It exhibits dFSCI in tons, and yet it seems unlikely that it was designed by humans, or by other physical conscious beings (except maybe aliens). No other explanation of it is available (neo-darwinism is not an explanation at all). But all known facts suggest that, at various points in natural history, functional information was repeatedly inputted in living beings, and that is exactly what we observe when there is an intervention by a conscious designer. That's why it is perfectly natural to consider the posiibility of some non physical designer.
But here your bias becomes evident. You object that we have no evidence of the existence of such a designer, ans ask for it. I can answer that we have no evidence that such a designer does not exist, indeed we have many empirical indications that it exists (on whose strength we disagree), and most human beings at all times have believed that non physical conscious agents exist. The fact remains that such agent or agents could exist, and that the existence of biological information and of dFSCI in it is a very strong support to that hypothesis.
Now, let's consider some similar scenarios. Let's take the theory of Big Bang. Why do most scientists believe that the Big Bang happened? It is simple: because some things we observe now are best explained by that assumption.
If I were strongly motivated not to accept the assunption of the Big Bang, I could say that I require independent verification and evidence that the Big Bang happened, that it is a fallacy that I use the things that the Big Bang should explain as evidence for it. IOWs, I could act as you are acting: unfairly, dogmatically, ready to all in order to justify my cognitive bias. What can I tell you? Good luck...
And this is another fallacy: We have no idea what the range of possible explanations are for extraordinary questions such as the existence of life and the universe. The answers may well be much stranger than simply “a human-like mind” – in fact, the answers may be stranger than we can imagine or understand. Or, we may someday learn a great deal more about reality and derive answers that we can understand. Nobody knows!
The fallacy is yours, and it is as big as a whole universe! It is the fallacy of refuting a good explanation for observed things without having any better explanation, only because you don't like it, and appealing to the myth of "possible explanations to come", of which you don't give any real hint. That is not science. That is dogma, based on fairy tales.
Science is made with the explanations we have. Or by finding better explanation. It is not made by saying that "the answers may be stranger than we can imagine or understand". That is only bad philosophy. And it is completely unfair.
Yes – perhaps we can discuss those arguments another time.
Anytime you like.
Nobody (certainly not me) ever said we shouldn’t be looking for answers! Of course we should! I am driven by a huge scientific curiosity, and am very excited that research into the nature of consciousness and cognition is proceeding very rapidly! OOL and how the universe came to exist are big questions that I don’t see a lot of progress on, but I’m certainly hoping that we do make progress on those questions to.
Maybe we don't "make progress", in spite of the huge amount of evidence we are gathering, because we are trying to fit the evidence where it does not fit at all (in the neo-darwinian model). A design model will help us to make real progress. Lies do not help to do that.
ID, however, doesn’t provide any empirically-support answers to any of these questions. The hypotheses of ID (to the extent they are well-defined, which is usually not the case) are not characterized in any way that we can tell if they are true or not.
What can I say? Misrepresentation, cognitive bias. Nothing good, in that kind of statement.gpuccio
December 29, 2013
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Re, RDF:
>> The hypotheses of ID (to the extent they are well-defined, which is usually not the case) are not characterized in any way that we can tell if they are true or not. >>
1 --> Broad-brush caricature + dismissal
2 --> The pivotal design assertion is that there are certain features of the natural world that manifest signs best explained on intelligent design rather than by blind chance or necessity.
3 --> For instance FSCO/I beyond 500 - 1,000 bits is commonly seen being created. In every observed case, by intelligence.
4 --> Where also a simple needle in haystack analysis of the config space search capacity of the 10^57 atoms of the sol system or 10^80 of the observed cosmos each acting as observers of say the state of a 500 or 1,000 coin H/T system respectively and trying a new config every 10^-14 s, will show inability to sample any more than an all but zero fraction, rendering it maximally implausible that such could chance upon relatively rare functionally specific clusters.
5 --> That these will be rare, islands of function, is effectively guaranteed by the requirements of well matched correctly arranged components to achieve function.
6 --> For simple example of such islands try the 500 coin case, with clusters such as (i) all H (b) alternating H and T, (c) spelling out the first 72 characters of this post in ASCII code. Contrast the overwhelming bulk of possibilities near 50-50 distribution in no particular order.
7 --> In short we have an example of a phenomenon only seen by intelligent design, and for which chance and necessity without design, will have no credible capacity per analysis.
8 --> Such a simple toy example then extends to in the world of life the FSCO/I of an encapsulated, gate-controlled, metabolic automaton with a code based self replicating facility dependent on homochirality, enfolding 100 - 1,000 k bits worth of info at the low end just for genome.
9 --> For the cosmos, we have the fine tuned physics that enables such life to be, which on just the precision and the array of laws and constants and the like easily runs by similar thresholds, with a specificity that is astonishing.
10 --> So, we see in the origin of the cosmos, of life and of major body plans, features that the only empirically grounded sources are intelligent ones, and good reason to dismiss chance and necessity without design as credible explanations.
11 --> Where a simple test such as to generate by chance and necessity without intelligence 72 characters of text in english that make sense, is well known and it is abundantly well known that to date the peak is 24 characters, something like a factor of 10^100 too short of config space size. That is, the proposition that FSCO/I comes form design is testable, tested and abundantly supported, but would be easily disconfirmed if that were to be observed.
12 --> All of this RDF et al know, have known for years, or at minimum SHOULD full well know, as it has been put to them ad nauseam, to the point where I find writing this yet again a weariness.
13 --> What is their out? to pretend that intelligence and design or function or something like that, are not well defined.
14 --> But if a random text generation exercise were to come up with FSCO/I or any of dozens of attempted falsifications I have seen over years -- like the youtube vid of the self assembling clock that is blind to its blunders and so many others, this would be at once trumpeted. As the failed attempts were repeatedly trumpeted until they were shot down one by one, many of them here at UD.
15 --> So, it is only fair comment to say that these new objections are a fall-back in defense of a fixed ideology, they are rhetorical cavils, not a serious argument. Humans are intelligent, as would be any other being with similar capacity per definition by key example and family resemblance, aka ostensive definition. Design is all around us. Functionality depending on correct arrangement of proper parts in a complex entity is a patent point. And so forth.
KFkairosfocus
December 29, 2013
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Ted: What explains biological complexity?
Fred: A conscious mind!
Ted: How do you know a conscious mind was involved?
Fred: Counterflow!Joe
December 29, 2013
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RD:
ID, however, doesn’t provide any empirically-support answers to any of these questions.
O disagree but what paradigm does? Please be specific.
Do you realize that if we cannot answer the OoL question then we cannot answer the evolution question either- they are directly linked.
Ted: How do explain Stonehenge?
Fred: Concious Designers
Ted: How do you know concious designers did it?
Fred: CounterflowJoe
December 29, 2013
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Hi gpuccio,
The production of CSI does require an I and its conscious representations, of whatever kind.
So this is a central disagreement between us. I don't think we have any theory, any principle, or any evidence that can support this assertion. Consciousness is not something we understand, and neither is our ability to design things, so making these sorts of statements is purely conjectural (even to the extent that the concepts, such as the "I", are well-defined).
Assumptions are part of an hypothesis, or more generally of a theory. You seem not to understand that scientific hypotheses can never be shown to be correct. At best, they can be falsified.
This is true in a very strict epistemological sense of course, but the fact is we all know a huge number of scientific hypotheses that have been shown to be correct. Do you not believe that cigarettes can cause lung cancer, or that obesity contributes to diabetes, or that seat belts save lives overall? How about that light bends around massive objects, travels through space unmediated, and has a speed independent of its source? All of these statements (and as many others as we'd like to think up) were once controversial hypotheses, are now very well-established truths. But none of these were taken as "assumptions" - they were all hypotheses that had to be verified by scientific research.
Simply making an assumption that we find provides a satisfying explanation for some phenomenon is only the start of process. In order to claim it as knowledge, we have to find ways to justify our belief.
New facts can support an existing hypothesis, or sometimes falsify it. They can never verify it. No scientific theory can be said to be finally “true”.
This is not at all what we disagree about. What we disagree about is whether or not your assumption that consciousness is necessary for the production of CSI has any empirical support. Since we do not understand what consciousness is, nor what it does, nor what are the necessary and sufficient conditions for its existence, nor how we accomplish design tasks, I think it is very clear that your assumption is without any empirical support at all - with the exception of the evidence you've mentioned having to do with paranormal phenomena and religious experience.
Design by some non physical conscious agent is certainly a possible explanation. A possible explanation is certainly better than no explanation.
I disagree - I think explanations are valuable only to the extent that they are correct. The explanations of disease that encouraged people to sacrifice animals to gods rather than wash their hands before eating were not better than nothing, for example.
The biological life itself is certainly an empirical fact, and according to ID theory it does support that some sort of conscious entity existed prior to biological life...
This is fallacious reasoning, similar to the old joke:
Ted: Why are you snapping your fingers?
Fred: To keep the tigers away!
Ted: There are no tigers in New York City!
Fred: See - it works!
* * *
Ted: What explains biological complexity?
Fred: A conscious mind!
Ted: How do you know a conscious mind was involved?
Fred: Because we observe biological complexity!
So you can see that you can't use the phenomenon you are attempting to explain as evidence that your hypothesis is true. Once you invent an hypotheses that explains your observation, you must find evidence that is not simply your original observation that supports your hypothesis. Otherwise, it would be very easy to provide support for anything we choose to believe!
...because that is the only possible explanation available.
And this is another fallacy: We have no idea what the range of possible explanations are for extraordinary questions such as the existence of life and the universe. The answers may well be much stranger than simply "a human-like mind" - in fact, the answers may be stranger than we can imagine or understand. Or, we may someday learn a great deal more about reality and derive answers that we can understand. Nobody knows!
Obviously, there are many other arguments that support the idea of non physical conscious entities. OK, we disagree about the strength :)
Yes - perhaps we can discuss those arguments another time.
But I do not accept that there are things manifesting in time and space, and therefore “exposed” to our understanding, however limited, for which we are a priori “authorized” not to look for an answer. So, I will always look for an answer for that kind of things. It is called scientific curiosity. And it is a very good thing.
Nobody (certainly not me) ever said we shouldn't be looking for answers! Of course we should! I am driven by a huge scientific curiosity, and am very excited that research into the nature of consciousness and cognition is proceeding very rapidly! OOL and how the universe came to exist are big questions that I don't see a lot of progress on, but I'm certainly hoping that we do make progress on those questions to.
ID, however, doesn't provide any empirically-support answers to any of these questions. The hypotheses of ID (to the extent they are well-defined, which is usually not the case) are not characterized in any way that we can tell if they are true or not.
Cheers,
RDFish/AIGuyRDFish
December 28, 2013
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RDFish:
In order:
I really do find your notion of “consciousness” to be unusual. Most people say things like “I lost consciousness” or “I was not conscious of my discomfort” or “I consciously tried to ignore him”, and none of these statements make sense under your definition of the word.
I think what you mean by “consciousness” is more closely related to what other people call “mind”. That word, for most people, includes both conscious and unconscious (or subconscious) mental faculties, and persists when people fall into a dreamless sleep.
But I’m picking up here that you might be familiar with different states of consciousness, and I would certainly agree with you that consciousness is experienced in varying states and degrees.
Well, I will stick to my definition nthat consciousness exists anytime a subject (an "I") represents something, whatever the degree and modality of the representation. "Mind" is not a satisfying concept for me.
Apart from biological systems, yes. But since biological systems were not originally designed by humans, this exception means that the indicator is in fact not reliable!
Again, if an object is not a biological system, the presence of dFSCI in it allows a correct human design inference in 100% of cases. Is that nothing, for you?
No I would not deny that. Using either of our meanings for “conscious” this is true. However, as for what you call “waking consciousness” (and I just call “consciousness”), this is not always true when we design other things (such as our sentences, the plans we devise to control our bodies or our automobiles in time and space, our unconscious solving of problems, and so on).
But it is always true under my definition of consciousness.
No, not always. There are cases of people with lesions in certain parts of their brains who experience their own verbalizations as external – they do not know what they are going to say until they hear themselves say it. Even people without such lesions are often surprised by what they themselves say. People often say things like “I heard myself tell my mother to shut up – I didn’t mean to say it, but it just came out!”. I had a colleague who insisted he could only think things through by talking it out; he would say “How am I supposed to know what I mean until I hear what I say?”. And psychologists know that talking about a problem is very different than thinking about a problem – we gain new insights when we listen to ourselves talk.
You are just describing strategies of communication between various states of the same consciousness. I have discussed some time ago the particular cases of apparent multiple personalities. I believe that, in most cases, they can be explained exactly as "multitasking" of the same "I" through different mental structures. Unless we are considering possession, I believe that the "I" remains one, even if its manifestations can sometimes be amazingly differentiated.
The point is that our minds are not unary things, and our conscious understanding is limited in many ways, and most of our thinking occurs without conscious awareness. The relevance to ID is that the production of CSI cannot be assumed to require conscious thought (in the common sense of the word).
Our minds are certainly not unary. That is absolutely obvious. What is unary is the perceiving subject which is what we really are.
The production of CSI does require an I and its conscious representations, of whatever kind. In some cases, they are not of the kind that I call "waking consciousness". There is no problem with that.
If you are talking about scientific or empirical theories, then you have left out a vital step. What you call “assumptions” are called “hypotheses” in scientific research. We invent hypotheses that would, if true, explain the phenomenon in question. But then – and this is critical – we must actually find ways to demonstrate that our hypothesis is correct!
Assumptions are part of an hypothesis, or more generally of a theory. You seem not to understand that scientific hypotheses can never be shown to be correct. At best, they can be falsified. The only thing we can show is that our hypotheses are in some way supported by known facts, in the sense that they explain them better than competing hypotheses, and sometimes (but not always) in the sense that they make better predictions.
Again, this turns empirical inquiry on its head: We do not accept our hypotheses until they are disproven; rather, we only accept them once they are verified.
Again, the same error. Scientific hypotheses are never "verified". Their value depends on how well they explain known facts. New facts can support an existing hypothesis, or sometimes falsify it. They can never verify it. No scientific theory can be said to be finally "true".
Yes, this is along the lines of what I’m talking about with regard to empirical support for your hypothesis (although we disagree about the strength of this particular evidence).
OK, that's fine. And we certainly disagree about the strength.
I agree that OOL is something that demands explanation, in the sense that it is a central and fascinating question that we have no explanation for.
Design by some non physical conscious agent is certainly a possible explanation. A possible explanation is certainly better than no explanation.
If there were empirical facts that supported the hypothesis that some sort of conscious entity existed prior to biological life, then I would agree with you. There is, however, no such evidence – there is only the biological life that we are attempting to explain
The biological life itself is certainly an empirical fact, and according to ID theory it does support that some sort of conscious entity existed prior to biological life, because that is the only possible explanation available.
Obviously, there are many other arguments that support the idea of non physical conscious entities. OK, we disagree about the strength :)
I find this attitude quite peculiar, really: Who says that we must have all the answers? What is wrong with admitting that there are some things we do not understand? What principle are you referring to that prevents us from remaining ignorant about some things in our universe?
There are many things that we do not understand. There are probably many things that we will never understand by our limited reason. But I do not accept that there are things manifesting in time and space, and therefore "exposed" to our understanding, however limited, for which we are a priori "authorized" not to look for an answer. So, I will always look for an answer for that kind of things. It is called scientific curiosity. And it is a very good thing.gpuccio
December 28, 2013
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RD:
If there were empirical facts that supported the hypothesis that some sort of conscious entity existed prior to biological life, then I would agree with you.
There are such empirical facts. Newton wrote his "Principia" on those facts.Joe
December 28, 2013
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MF:
Of course I accept that things are designed. I design things myself. However, I believe that intelligence which includes design comes to down a blend of the determined and the random.
Believe whatever you want. It ain't scienceJoe
December 28, 2013
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MF,
Pardon, but let me go through in steps:
[MF, in 50 in the original thread as linked in the OP:]
>>I see “chance” as usually meaning to “unpredictable” or “no known explanation”.>>
1 --> Chance entities are often predictable to the level of a statistical distribution, and may often have an explanation as is offered for how a falling tumbling fair die puts on a pretty good imitation of a flat random distribution mathematical model.
2 --> A standard 6-sided die cannot read 7 for instance, or 0, as these are not in the range of possibilities.
>> The unknown explanations may be deterministic elements>>
3 --> Deterministic elements may be involved, but usually the situation with a tumbling die is chaotic, dependent on fine, uncontrolled variability that is amplified by the nonlinearities.
>> or genuinely random uncaused events>>
4 --> An event by definition begins, and that which begins has a cause, depending on on/off enabling factors. The denial of this leads to absurdities as long since extensively highlighted at UD.
5 --> Quantum randomness such as the tunnelling associated with alpha emission, is constrained by such causal factors that make a given nuclide an alpha emitter.
>> which we just don’t know about.>>
6 --> What we do not or even may not specifically know does not remove what we do know about on/off enabling factors, and about the necessary contingency of that which has a beginning . . . which includes, credibly, our observed cosmos -- the only actually observed cosmos.
>>It can also includes things that happen as the result of intelligence –>>
7 --> If a die is intelligently tossed, yes, but if you mean here that intelligence mimics chance, that is not the same thing.
>> but as a materialist>>
8 --> There's the first loading.
>> I believe intelligence to be a blend of the determined and random>>
9 --> So, when you see a case of intelligence in action you assign it to chance and/or necessity.
10 --> This overlooks the major complexity threshold of 500 - 1,000 bits faced bu blind chance and mechanical necessity, which makes it maximally implausible as an explanation for functionally specific complex organisation and associated information.
11 --> This sets up what follows
>>so for me that is not a third type of explanation.>>
12 --> There's the lock-out, driven by a priori commitment to materialism.
The result of the pattern just pointed out is deadlock.
Ask yourself, what evidence could have a reasonable chance of empirically correcting my pattern of thought.
For just one instance, can you identify a case of observed origin of say digitally coded functionally specific information at or beyond 1,000 bits by blind chance and mechanical necessity, and what does the needle in haystack challenge on the scope of 10^80 atoms, 10^25 s and atomic action speeds of say 10^-14 s per action.
To make this concrete, consider a string of 1,000 fair coins on a table, all reading H, then another reading alternating H and T, then another, the ascii code for the first 143 characters of this post. Would it be reasonable to attribute any of these cases to blind chance and mechanical necessity, in light of the dominant cluster of outcomes for the associated binomial distribution? Why?
Similarly, functionally specific complex organisation in general can be represented by an appropriately coded bit string. If we are beyond 1,000 bits, much the same will obtain.
Now, it turns out that the pattern of fine tuned constants etc in physics that set up our observed cosmos as a fit context for C-chemistry, aqueous medium cell based life, will very rapidly run past 1,000 bits worth of FSCO/I . . . just a few of the constants will do that. What then blocks the inference from that FSCO/I to design of the observed physical cosmos and instead leads you to conclude that design in this case reduces to blind chance and mechanical necessity?
And that still does not address the loaded mischaracterisation of how we have been speaking of self-evident truth.
Both need to be addressed.
KFkairosfocus
December 28, 2013
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Hi gpuccio,
RDF: In your view, I am conscious of everything like this all the time, whether I’m aware of it or not. Is that correct?
GP: Yes.
I really do find your notion of "consciousness" to be unusual. Most people say things like "I lost consciousness" or "I was not conscious of my discomfort" or "I consciously tried to ignore him", and none of these statements make sense under your definition of the word.
I think what you mean by "consciousness" is more closely related to what other people call "mind". That word, for most people, includes both conscious and unconscious (or subconscious) mental faculties, and persists when people fall into a dreamless sleep.
But I'm picking up here that you might be familiar with different states of consciousness, and I would certainly agree with you that consciousness is experienced in varying states and degrees.
No, dFSCI is “a reliable indicator of human design”, because, apart from biological information, everything in the world we know of, exhibiting dFSCI, has been designed by humans. I would definitely call that a relaible indicator.
Apart from biological systems, yes. But since biological systems were not originally designed by humans, this exception means that the indicator is in fact not reliable!
Would you deny that, when I write a software, I am conscious of its purpose and of how it works?
No I would not deny that. Using either of our meanings for "conscious" this is true. However, as for what you call "waking consciousness" (and I just call "consciousness"), this is not always true when we design other things (such as our sentences, the plans we devise to control our bodies or our automobiles in time and space, our unconscious solving of problems, and so on).
You say that we are not conscious of how we generate language. That may be true,...
It is quite true, and if anyone could figure it out, they would be quite famous!
...but we are certainly conscious of its meaning and purpose before outputting it.
No, not always. There are cases of people with lesions in certain parts of their brains who experience their own verbalizations as external - they do not know what they are going to say until they hear themselves say it. Even people without such lesions are often surprised by what they themselves say. People often say things like "I heard myself tell my mother to shut up - I didn't mean to say it, but it just came out!". I had a colleague who insisted he could only think things through by talking it out; he would say "How am I supposed to know what I mean until I hear what I say?". And psychologists know that talking about a problem is very different than thinking about a problem - we gain new insights when we listen to ourselves talk.
The point is that our minds are not unary things, and our conscious understanding is limited in many ways, and most of our thinking occurs without conscious awareness. The relevance to ID is that the production of CSI cannot be assumed to require conscious thought (in the common sense of the word).
RDF: That is an assumption, not an inference based upon our empirical knowledge.
GP: As I have tried to explain, we make assumptions to build theories which make inferences that explain data. We cannot go anywhere without making assumptions. Inferences are the result. Assumptions are the building blocks of theories.
If you are talking about scientific or empirical theories, then you have left out a vital step. What you call "assumptions" are called "hypotheses" in scientific research. We invent hypotheses that would, if true, explain the phenomenon in question. But then - and this is critical - we must actually find ways to demonstrate that our hypothesis is correct!
I will stick to that assumption until facts show me differently. I am very satisfied of how that assumption explains data.
Again, this turns empirical inquiry on its head: We do not accept our hypotheses until they are disproven; rather, we only accept them once they are verified.
I do acknowledge that explicitly. Religious experiences and NDEs are important empirical data. I definitely base much of my map of reality on them, and all other empirical data available.
Yes, this is along the lines of what I'm talking about with regard to empirical support for your hypothesis (although we disagree about the strength of this particular evidence).
OOL (and its evolution) happens in the universe, in time and space. It absolutely requires some scientific explanation.
I agree that OOL is something that demands explanation, in the sense that it is a central and fascinating question that we have no explanation for.
And if the explanation really requires consciousness as part of itself (as I do believe), then consciousness, as any other empirical fact, must be part of that explanation.
If there were empirical facts that supported the hypothesis that some sort of conscious entity existed prior to biological life, then I would agree with you. There is, however, no such evidence - there is only the biological life that we are attempting to explain.
IOWs, a question about something (the origin of biological information) which happens in space and time cannot, in principle, “remain unanswered”.
I find this attitude quite peculiar, really: Who says that we must have all the answers? What is wrong with admitting that there are some things we do not understand? What principle are you referring to that prevents us from remaining ignorant about some things in our universe?
Cheers,
RDFish/AIGuyRDFish
December 28, 2013
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KF
The import of your declaration is that it is your policy to a priori rule out design. I suggest instead, start from the empirical fact of designers and their capacity then without injecting controlling a prioris, go out from there.
Not at all. I said “as a materialist I believe intelligence to be a blend of the determined and random so for me that is not a third type of explanation.” Of course I accept that things are designed. I design things myself. However, I believe that intelligence which includes design comes to down a blend of the determined and the random. This does not attempt to rule out things being designed, but is my conclusion about what happens when things are designed. This belief is a conclusion, not an a priori commitment. You certainly disagree with my conclusion but it did not involve me refusing to entertain anything.Mark Frank
December 28, 2013
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[MF, in 50:] I see “chance” as usually meaning to “unpredictable” or “no known explanation”. The unknown explanations may be deterministic elements or genuinely random uncaused events which we just don’t know about.
It can also includes things that happen as the result of intelligence – but as a materialist I believe intelligence to be a blend of the determined and random so for me that is not a third type of explanation.
So that means there are no artifacts, no murders and no crimesJoe
December 28, 2013
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MF:
The import of your declaration is that it is your policy to a priori rule out design. I suggest instead, start from the empirical fact of designers and their capacity then without injecting controlling a prioris, go out from there.
As to no time, there is no rush.
The issue of projecting the idea that we are asserting that SETs are obvious and in that obviousness only the dishonest disagree is a sufficiently serious misunderstanding of our point that you should take due time to correct it.
Unfortunately, your emphasis on "obvious[ness]" forces me to use an example that is anything but obvious (save to those with considerable background in Mathematics probably requiring at least supplements to A Level Math circa 1979 . . . I cannot vouch for current syllabi but am aware of that story of an O level problem later turning up in an A level Math exam . . . ) but once one is equipped to understand is clear once seen, and is undeniable save on patent absurdity.
Also, a case that cuts across the sides of the ID disputes and where I too was once one of those who did not understand in due to ignorance in both senses in succession: first I didn't know the Math then I did not think second time about the spherical surface triangle. The aha moment when I spotted that OOPS, that was why Azimov said PLANE truth about that postulate, was a real eye-opener.
I trust we can come to reasonable common ground.
KFkairosfocus
December 28, 2013
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Hi Joe:
Hope the season goes well and that 2014 will be well.
(That extends to all.)
RD needs to address the FSCI threshold of complexity issue (500 - 1,000 bits) and its import that no atom based blind process, whether chance or necessity or both in combination, can plausibly get us to FSCO/I and especially digitally coded FSCI, which, is a LINGUISTIC and often an ALGORITHMIC -- thus purposive -- phenomenon. We do know that intelligences routinely produce FSCO/I using insight and creativity, and we know that there is no good reason to confine intelligence to humans.
Indeed, the evidence from the world of life points to intelligence antecedent to life on earth, and the fine tuning of the cosmos that facilitates such, points to intelligent, powerful design antecedent to the observed material cosmos.
The increasingly strained objections highlight the real balance on the merits.
KFkairosfocus
December 28, 2013
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MF:
It is some (but not all) IDists who repeatedly use the argument “X is so obviously true anyone who denies it must be stupid or dishonest”.
Evos use it all of the time- see Dawkins, for example. However what evos can't do is tell us how to objectively test the claims of their position. It's as if they are afraid.Joe
December 28, 2013
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Except obviously dFSCI is not a reliable indicator of human design, since humans clearly did not design the original human. The issue at hand is what exactly (if anything) is dFSCI a reliable indicator of? It is of course a reliable indicator of the ability to create dFSCI, but that is an empty statement.
Every time we have observed dFSCI and knew the cause it has always been via intelligent agency- always, 100% of the time. We have never observed nature, operating freely, producing dFSCI- never, 0% of the time.
That means, scientifically, if we observe dFSCI and do not know the cause we can scientifically infer it was via some intelligent agency.
That's how science operates RD. Don't blame us for your misunderstandings.Joe
December 28, 2013
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KF - #49.
I was only explaining what I believe to be true and the consequences of that belief. I did not meant to imply that it was not up for discussion or that is some kind of a priori commitment. I am sorry I don't have time to read the entire comment.Mark Frank
December 28, 2013
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MF:
Pardon, but I must disagree. Here is your declaration as cited in the OP from where you originally made it:
[re EA] #38
[MF, in 50:] I see “chance” as usually meaning to “unpredictable” or “no known explanation”. The unknown explanations may be deterministic elements or genuinely random uncaused events which we just don’t know about.
It can also includes things that happen as the result of intelligence – but as a materialist I believe intelligence to be a blend of the determined and random so for me that is not a third type of explanation.
This is indeed an imposition of a materialist a priori. (And I add that the notion of uncaused events -- which are things that have a beginning, they are not necessary beings -- is incoherent and chaotic.)
Second, you have managed to caricature the argument that self-evident truths exist and are foundational to reasoning.
No responsible person argues that SET's are "so obviously true anyone who denies it must be stupid or dishonest."
That, sir, is a loaded caricature; one projected unto the design movement as a whole.
Indeed, in the recent (Nov. 30) UD blog post where I argued for SETs as foundational to reasoning and to the debates over design at worldview levels, I explicitly and extensively headlined Aquinas, in the context of his remark that SETs are in many cases beyond the ability of some people to understand them.
Here is an excerpt from what Aquinas said:
a thing is said to be self-evident in two ways: first, in itself; secondly, in relation to us. Any proposition is said to be self-evident in itself, if its predicate is contained in the notion of the subject: although, to one who knows not the definition of the subject, it happens that such a proposition is not self-evident. For instance, this proposition, “Man is a rational being,” is, in its very nature, self-evident, since who says “man,” says “a rational being”: and yet to one who knows not what a man is, this proposition is not self-evident . . .
This clip is of course the opening part of the cite from Aquinas. And no, those are not my words, they are those of the Angelic doctor in translation.
And, here is the description of what self evidence means that I presented as a basis for the discussion which went to 405 comments . . . including yourself from 35 on:
self-evident does not merely mean perceived as obvious to oneself, which could indeed be a manifestation of a delusion. Nay, a self evident truth [SET] is best summarised as one known to be so and to be necessarily so without further proof from other things.
That is, a SET is:
a: actually true — it accurately reports some relevant feature of reality (e.g.: error exists)
b: immediately recognised as true once one actually understands what is being asserted, in light of our conscious experience of the world (as in, no reasonable person would but recognise the reality that error exists)
c: further seen as something that must be true, on pain of patent absurdity on attempted denial. (E.g. try denying “error exists” . . . the absurdity is rapidly, forcefully manifest)
This summary . . . and the three distinct criteria listed were presented in highlight colours -- to draw attention . . . comes just before I cited Aquinas. So, there is no good reason why the above should be mischaracterised as you did above.
I actually believe there are two highly relevant ways that one can misunderstand a SET: primary and secondary.
Primary, being simply ignorant.
Secondary, through being locked up into a scheme of thought that warps ability to perceive and understand. In the latter case, a classic instance appears in John 8:45 -- 46, to wit:
But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me . . . If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me?
Similarly in the Sermon on the Mount (his most famous speech and an all time classic of speech as an art form), Matt 6:22 - 23, he warns:
Matt 6:22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, 23 but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
I actually believe, as Galilee was a mixed Jewish and Gentile community and as he actually quotes Greek theatre lines in other context, he was echoing Plato's Parable of the Cave here. If one's mind and heart are full of Cave shadow shows, one will be likely to misunderstand and resist what should otherwise be fairly clear truth.
Going beyond, observe the part c of the description, one can only reject SET by clinging to absurdity. But I have never said anywhere that one cannot convince him or herself that absurdity is true or reasonable. How could I, I grew up intellectually on a Marxist Uni campus as a member of the party of dissent from its conventional wisdoms, and was around to see the collapse of Marxism and how it affected the campus!
Indeed, in some recent discussions there was a tendency to put up Euclid's 5th postulate as a case in point of how the SET concept breaks down. Especially, by ID supporter, SC with support by another ID supporter, Mapou. (Notice, this is NOT a 1:1 match with the dividing lines over the design inference. That is why I am using this example.)
You will recall that in 113 I responded by defining numbers starting withthe empty set and in outline building up to the real numbers, then going to the complex plane, and setting up a triangle ABC, with A at origin and AB the real axis (let me here say it is a right angle triangle, to make this easier).
I used i = sqrt( -1) to define the y axis as orthogonal and the fact that the three corners in a triangle specify a plane, to highlight that we are indeed dealing with a guaranteed FLAT plane here.
I then used the general expression for a straight line in a flat plane, y = m*x + c, to show that for given m and values of c c0, c1, c2, c3 etc, their separation at any value of x will be the same, i.e. the postulate is necessarily true in a plane, the precise context in which Euclid spoke to begin with, only he did not have access to complex numbers and algebra to specify this algebraically and so unambiguously.
I then highlighted that when we see denials of the parallel line postulate, they invariably are NOT dealing with a flat plane, e.g. they deal with the surface of a sphere, and the like. I then cited Wolfram:
In three dimensions, there are three classes of constant curvature geometries. All are based on the first four of Euclid’s postulates, but each uses its own version of the parallel postulate. The “flat” geometry of everyday intuition is called Euclidean geometry (or parabolic geometry), and the non-Euclidean geometries are called hyperbolic geometry (or Lobachevsky-Bolyai-Gauss geometry) and elliptic geometry (or Riemannian geometry). Spherical geometry is a non-Euclidean two-dimensional geometry. It was not until 1868 that Beltrami proved that non-Euclidean geometries were as logically consistent as Euclidean geometry.
Now, I did all of this to lay a basis of understanding in the teeth of what I regard as secondary ignorance that I myself once shared on how the Euclidean scheme breaks down. Then, the light bulb went off, oops, there is an ambiguity here that changes Euclid's context of meaning and makes him sound like he is talking nonsense. A spherical surface is NOT a flat plane, and a curved spatial fabric otherwise is NOT a flat one. Also, the question as to the actual space-time properties of the cosmos we live in is separate and distinct from the question as to whether the flat space suggested by our ordinary scale experience has the logical propertied Euclid highlighted.
Now, notice too: there is no way that the argument I developed is accessible to someone who has not had algebra and complex numbers, as well as set theory at at least a basic level, or understood enough to know the subtleties of the place value notation system used in decimal numbers and how we can treat it as an infinite series to get continuity. Indeed, if you are unaware of the distinction between a countable transfinite and the transfinite of the continuum, there will be aspects that you will miss.
But once you get there you will see that a truly flat plane, guaranteed so by the algebra involved and the geometry involved, as well as the rotational properties of complex numbers [which are really vectors] -- belts and braces -- will indeed necessarily have the parallel line postulate holding. You can only deny that by clinging to absurd consequences that boil down to a breakdown of the algebra into incoherence. (The value of C, a defined constant, will have to change depending on x value to make parallel straight lines in a flat plane converge or diverge, which is nonsense.)
Is this accessible to the ordinary man? Patently not.
But, the one who has the relevant background will at once see that in light of his experience and knowledge base, it is true, it is necessarily true and it is true on pain of being forced to cling to absurdity on attempted denial.
Even so, a great many highly educated people, myself included, were led to disbelieve this, and I do not doubt that some will cling to the dismissal that is so widely promoted.
Going back tot he discussion in that Nov 30 Aquinas thread, you will doubtless recall how a major fuss was made over how E = "error exists" is an alleged instance of the thought crime of "reification." You will see that I took time to point out that in so summarising Royce and arguing that this is a SET, I am simply asserting that the set that collects errors is necessarily non-empty as the case of attempted denial of E is a proposition ~E that then leads to the composite E AND ~E which is necessarily false, and an error. So R the set that collects errors must be non-empty. The reality of abstract entities such as propositions and numbers is NOT improper attribution of physical properties to such. Where also the insinuation in recent dictionaries etc that it is only the physically manifest that is REAL, is an instance of slipping in dubious ideological a prioris in the back door.
So, you will see why I say, again, you have misrepresenated the view of those who hold that SETs are real, and that they are foundational to reasoning, especially the first principles of right reason. (Onlookers, kindly cf here on for why I say this.)
So also, you now face a test: will you now simply and directly acknowledge that your projection as to what certain design thinkers believe about SETs, as I have cited above from you, is in error and distorts our view, or will you find some rhetorical out and slip-slide away?
KFkairosfocus
December 28, 2013
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Just time for a quick comment ....
Start here: when MF imposes a priori materialism and refuses to entertain the empirical fact of designing intelligence, that deadlocks any possibility of reasonable discussion due to a priori question begging.
I don't "refuse to entertain" anything. I am open to discussing all aspects of the philosophy of the mind while the debate remains constructive. It is some (but not all) IDists who repeatedly use the argument "X is so obviously true anyone who denies it must be stupid or dishonest". I rarely see this argument among ID opponents and I am certainly happy to "entertain" almost any X in the sense of considering the possibility that X might be true and the evidence for and against it.Mark Frank
December 28, 2013
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KF:
Yes, sure! Language is dFSCI. It is really amazing how every human being is able, through language, be it simple or sophisticated, to generate new, original dFSCI in order to express his conscious representations and desires. Even the simplest language output is original, complex and functional.
We often use Shakespeare as a model of dFSCI. That is fine and elegant, but sometimes people think that what we mean is that Shakespeare was a great genius, and therefore he created something really special. While that is certainly true, it is important to remember that any trivial piece of information, such as a biographical sketch, or some mathematical definition, is dFSCI just the same, even if its content is not deep or poetical. The information is there, the complexity is there.
Certainly, it would be interesting to assess the dbFSCI of language (digital beautiful FSCI), and there Shakespeare would certainly be a wonderful model, but I think I will not get involved in that, at present :)gpuccio
December 28, 2013
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GP: Recall, symbolic, discrete state codes -- digitally coded, functionally specific information -- is a manifestation of language and so also linguistic ability. KFkairosfocus
